


This Is Not My Beautiful House

by AdamantSteve



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Karaoke, M/M, Memory Loss, Portals, but it's not actually memory loss, other dimension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-21
Updated: 2013-02-21
Packaged: 2017-11-30 00:28:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/693262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdamantSteve/pseuds/AdamantSteve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint wakes up after a mission he can't remember with the boyfriend he never thought he'd have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is Not My Beautiful House

**Author's Note:**

> This is NOT related to the whole memory implant thing in Secret Avengers and therefore there is no creepy mind control stuff! See the end notes for spoilers if you want to know the details.
> 
> Betaed by [Dunicha](http://dunicha.tumblr.com)
> 
> This is for the Memory Loss square of my Trope Bingo card!

Clint’s eyes opened slowly. He was obviously on drugs of some kind, morphine making his eyelids feel thick and heavy and his vision blurry, but it was almost a comfort after so many years - waking up groggy but warm, the faint beeping of machines somewhere, SHIELD medical looking after their own.

 

He blinked, his eyes adjusting to the light, vision clearing and then stubbornly blurring again. There was a movement next to him, a weight lifting from the bed and the beeping stopped. And then soft pressure on his head, light and soothing - fingers running through his hair. Probably Natasha, Clint thought, only doing something so sappy because she could tell how out of it he was. The fingers stopped and then his leg felt cold as something - a bandage he guessed - was changed, the doctor gentler than usual. Perhaps he was really banged up this time. 

 

“Go back to sleep, Clint,” a voice said, and whoever this doctor was had a great bedside manner, holding his hand as he slipped back into unconsciousness.

 

-

 

When he woke again it was dark, the beeping stopping and those fingers in his hair once more, lightly scratching his scalp and feeling like cool water in the desert. He made a small sound of pleasure and the doctor? Nurse? Natasha? laughed through their nose and let their fingers trail down the side of his face before lips lightly kissed his forehead. Natasha never did that. 

 

He slowly realised the bed must be bigger than a regular hospital bed as a warm weight slid carefully next to him and the fingers were back in his hair. He supposed he should have felt scared or something about this mysterious person going above and beyond what SHIELD medical ever usually did, but all he felt was safe, and even if he did have no idea who it was, he found himself curling into that heat all the same.

 

-

 

The beeps stopping again woke him, and his eyes - finally clear enough to see - opened to morning light and the back of a man’s head as he reached away to something, turning over afterwards to look at Clint with fondness and worry. “Coulson?” Clint croaked, his mouth so dry it was less a word than a sound. His handler smiled and reached over to lay a hand on Clint’s waist and perhaps if he’d been in a more composed state he’d have said something, but he just... let the feeling of it resting there soak in a little instead. 

 

Phil was wearing a t-shirt with a hole in it at the neck, and Clint just stared at it, confused but for some reason not scared. It was _Phil_ , he always knew what was best. If Phil figured Clint needed whatever this was, he was all for it. Seeing him out of a suit or a tac uniform also ought to have been disarming but it wasn’t. It just felt... right.

 

The lines on Phil’s face were the same as they always were: a little stress, a little concern. But something else was there too, a softness Clint couldn’t place that he’d never seen on Phil’s face before.

 

He swallowed a few times til he could reliably speak again, Phil watching his throat as he did it. “Sir?” Clint said eventually, because as weirdly nice as this was, he did want to know what was going on.

 

But Phil looked bemused, smiling and replying, “Agent?” Like it was a joke or something. “Mission?” Clint said, because if Phil was here, wherever here was since this definitely wasn’t SHIELD medical, he had to want Clint’s reports as soon as possible. But Phil winced and that hand of his on Clint’s side squeezed just a little bit. “Don’t worry about it now.”

“Sorry sir, I don’t remember,”

“It’s alright Clint,” his eyes looked sort of pained, probably because Clint was being a liability like always. “Can I get you anything?” 

 _More of those delicious head scratches_ , Clint didn’t say. “Water?”

 

-

 

“Where are we?” Clint asked eventually, and Phil paused in the middle of changing Clint’s dressing again. “Our apartment,” he said. 

“Shit,” Clint finally realised that whatever mission they were on that had fallen out of his head was still happening, they were still under their cover and that’s why Phil was playing nursemaid and there was only the one bed. “Shit, I’m sorry. I don’t remember the mission, sir,” Clint said in a panic. “Can you brief me again?”

Phil wound bandages around Clint’s leg. “The mission’s over, don’t worry about it for now.”

“Extraction?”

Phil stopped again and looked at him with more concern than Clint had ever seen on his face before. “I told you, we’re home.”

 

-

 

Clint would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it: some sort of fairytale happy ending where he and Phil got together and lived happily ever after, thwarting bad guys and then going home for dinner. But this... this couldn’t be real. Phil was a walking SHIELD handbook, this just couldn’t happen, and even if it did, Phil didn’t live in a place like this, he lived on the helicarrier. And he didn’t wear t-shirts with holes in them. 

 

Clint’s mind whirred into the best action he could manage with drugs still sliding through his veins, working over possibilities: infiltration by parties unknown, Phil was a fake Phil of some sort and this was... for what? Clint was a hostage? They wanted something out of him? One thing was certain: he couldn’t trust Phil right now and had to get out as soon as possible, find Fury or Natasha or _someone_ and figure this out. 

 

This Not-Phil with his soft eyes and idle touches... he had to quell his suspicions that Clint was onto him, whatever his plan was, play along til he was well enough that he could run.

 

-

 

“Are you sure you’re going to be ok?” Phil asked a couple of days later, wearing a suit and looking more like real-Phil, but still with the softness in his eyes that made Clint’s heart shiver. “I can stay home a couple more days.” 

“No, I’m good,” Clint grinned, twirling on his crutches to prove it. His leg wasn’t broken but the muscles were pretty torn up. It hurt a hell of a lot but Clint didn’t trust the pills not-Phil gave him, and after an argument - “You always do this, why don’t you trust me?” - he let him be. The pain made it easier to believe this wasn’t real, just some unending dream-nightmare trying to undo him from the inside out. 

 

When he was gone, Clint gathered some things and took a last look at the photos in the hallway of him and Phil where his own eyes had the same softness that pretend-Phil’s had before slipping away.

 

The crutches put him at a disadvantage, obviously, but it was New York and if there was anywhere you could go ignored, it was there. He took a cab and had it take an elaborate route that doubled back on itself, switching cabs twice til he was sure no one was tailing them.

 

He struggled up the six flights of stairs to Natasha’s apartment til he crumpled, panting outside her door. He banged on it with the end of a crutch and after a moment she cracked it open, closing it to release the catch and open it wide once she saw who it was. “Idiot,” she sighed, pulling him up with both hands. 

 

He sat down in the small kitchen, leg throbbing. “Nat,” Clint began, suddenly unsure of how to proceed: how could he be sure she was _his_ Nat? “Yes?” She prompted at his silence, turning to run some water into her weird old Russian coffee maker, blackened from her refusal to ever wash it and risk ruining the flavour.

“Tell me what I said the first time I met you.”

She paused but didn’t turn around. “‘ _It’s not worth it’_. What’s wrong?” She turned and looked at him, worry mingled with her trademark wariness, unsure if whatever had spooked Clint was something that needed to spook her too.

 

“I think... I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t remember anything from my last mission, and Coulson...” Clint swallowed and looked at his hands, “he’s being so fucking weird, I don’t even think... it’s like he’s not real. Did something happen to him? Why is he-” _suddenly my boyfriend_ , Clint thought. “Acting so fucking weird?”

 

Natasha eyed him suspiciously. “Weird?” 

“I’ve never... that apartment. It has all my stuff but I don’t... I’ve never been in that apartment before.”

“What are you saying, Clint?” She sat at the kitchen table opposite him, the same wooden thing with knife marks all over it, old and real. Clint had helped her drag it up the side of the building on a makeshift pulley when she’d moved in.

“I’m saying I don’t know what the fuck is going on.”

“Phil’s acting different?” 

Clint didn’t know how to explain the familiarity, the comfortableness of Phil around him, the way he was just so fucking careful with him, tender. The fact that up til now, he’d never so much as kissed this man who was now... “Yeah.”

 

Natasha took a tangerine out of the fruit bowl and offered it to Clint, pressing a finger into it to start peeling it when he shook his head. Fake-Phil had made him scrambled eggs before he left, and Clint had eaten them only because he watched him like a hawk as he made them. Nothing seemed to have been added, and they tasted amazing.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Natasha started peeling the tangerine in one long piece. 

 

“I remember going to the briefing room and getting the file. Phil chewed me out for fucking with the juniors. Then.... I guess we left. But I don’t remember anything about the mission at all. The next thing I remember was waking up to Phil-”

 

Natasha handed him a slice of tangerine and he froze when he saw the skin of her wrist. “Where’s your tattoo?” 

Clint felt like the floor had dropped out from beneath him. Natasha’s face fell stone-like. “What?” 

“Your... Oh fuck.” Clint pushed back from the table and stood, wincing at the pain in his leg and hobbling away from her. 

“How do you know about that?” Natasha demanded.

“What?” 

“You’ve never seen...” She shook her head. “I had that tattoo removed eight years ago. And I never told you about it.” 

Clint shook his head as the cold tendrils of panic began to spread through him. “No. No you have a tattoo! Right there! The little red star.” Clint ran his hands through his hair in despair. “What the _fuck_?” 

 

Natasha was rigid, still sitting at the table with her hand underneath it, around the gun she kept taped there, Clint knew. There was a gun hidden in the umbrella stand next to the door and a knife behind the painting of... what used to be a picture of the turrets of St Petersburg but was now that classic photo of men sitting on a steel girder high above New York. He looked back at her.

 

“How do you know about the tattoo?” 

Clint shook his head. “I... I. You just. You’ve always had it.”

“And what did I tell you about it?” 

“That... they gave you it in the Red Room.” 

 

“Are you working for someone?”

“Nat, no! I just fucking woke up and everything had gone to hell.”

Natasha looked him up and down, calculating. “You know I have a gun under this table.” 

Clint nodded. “And about a million knives all over the place.”

“Sit down,” she said, and even though he couldn’t see it, she may as well have been holding the gun to his head.

 

He sat, glad to relieve some of the pressure on his leg even if it was at the expense of maybe his freedom. “Tell me about the Avengers,” she said, and Clint stared at her. Why go to this elaborate extent to have him talk about his team? Sure, making him feel like he was losing his mind was a good way to make someone talk but why leave out details like the tattoo? He decided to just go with things anyone would know, tabloid fodder.

“Um. Tony Stark is Iron Man; Bruce Banner, the Hulk; Steve Rogers, Captain America,” she watched him placidly. “Thor, fucking norse god or whatever; Bucky, the Winter Soldier; Spiderman. And you. And me.” 

 

Her face fell to that terrifying one again: cold and hard. “Winter Soldier?” Her voice was a hard whisper.

“Yeah, Steve’s buddy from the war. Metal arm.” She should know, she used to date the guy, but her face was even paler than it had been before.  She swallowed hard. “How-” she stopped herself, blinking and twisting her body to switch off the coffee on the stove, eyes never leaving Clint. 

 

“What do you know about SHIELD?” 

Clint frowned, he was so bad at this compared to Natasha. “You tell me.” 

She reeled off half a dozen things anyone with access to the internet could find out about SHIELD. “Tell me about Phil,” Clint interrupted. 

“He used to be your handler til you got together a couple of years back.” 

Clint tried to breathe slowly but felt himself slipping into a panic. “But he. He always said...”

“That it’d be too complicated.” 

Clint nodded dumbly. 

“He changed his mind after Loki.” 

“What does that mean?” 

She narrowed her eyes but seemed to believe his confusion. “The Chitauri attack?” At his blank look she yanked the gun from under the table, the sound of duct tape unsticking as she did so, and held it nonchalantly, getting up to walk to the bookcase. She plucked out a hardback book and put it on the table in front of him. ‘The Rebuilding Of New York’ it was called. “Go ahead,” she said, still standing and pulling out tiny cups and saucers from a cupboard, eyes never leaving Clint.

 

Clint flicked through the book, glossy pages full of pictures of destruction and heroic looking emergency workers pulling people out of rubble. “This is like nine-twelve or something,” he murmured.

Natasha stopped. “Excuse me?”

 

-

 

After a detailed discussion with guns and knives firmly at the ready, they worked out that Clint’s memories were mostly the same as Natasha’s but with key fundamental differences that couldn’t be explained. Phil and Clint were dating, Natasha had never heard of Spiderman, Tony had married his PA. Aliens had attacked New York and Phil had almost died, coming out of a coma to ask Clint to go out to dinner with him in front of a room full of people. 

 

The mission that Clint couldn’t remember had been infiltrating an underground network of labs that it turned out were trying to create portals to other dimensions, which had then exploded, Clint getting buried under rubble and being brought out and taken home - where he lived with Coulson - since he hated medical so much. This version of Phil had apparently taken special courses so he could always take care of Clint at home so long as his life wasn’t hanging in the balance. 

 

“So I guess,” Clint said once they traced it back to the lab, “I’m not the real Clint Barton.” 

 

-

 

Natasha explained everything to SHIELD over the phone, as efficient in this dimension as any other. “What do you want to do?” Natasha asked him. “You can stay here if you want. Or go-” _home_ , she didn’t say, “to Phil’s place. Or the helicarrier.” 

The helicarrier sounded good.

 

-

 

The next day, Fury had talked over Clint’s options and told him that the R&D department were working on what they salvaged from the lab alongside Tony, Bruce and some guy called Hank, hoping to at least work out how Clint had ended up there and wondering where the other version of himself might be.

 

Clint went to the range for a while, but even his bow was different, little details that he’d argued with Tony over not quite what he was used to. He went back to his quarters and was reading over the final report of the Battle of New York when Phil knocked on the door.

 

“I understand if you don’t want to see me,” Phil started, looking at the floor. “No, come in.” Clint stepped aside and in Phil walked, curled in on himself and looking small. 

“Listen, Clint, I- I’m really sorry if I made you uncomfortable.” He looked at him before looking away, like it hurt him just to see Clint’s face. 

“How were you to know?” Clint asked. His arms hung by his side and he felt useless. They stood in silence for a while and Clint didn’t know what to say. How could he explain that somehow he’d woken up in a different place where he actually had everything he’d not even dared let himself want? “Listen, for what it’s worth? My version of you... Well I wanted to date him, so it really wasn’t a hardship.” 

 

Phil’s face creased up and he seemed even smaller, but only for a moment. He stood straight and cleared his face back to it’s bland mask. “That’s good,” he said with a small smile, and Clint felt like he’d said the wrong thing. 

“We could-” Clint began, his arm reaching a little towards the man but then stopping. “I don’t mind. If you want to... pick up where you left off,” he realised once he’d said it how awkward and sad that sounded and looked away. “I mean I know I’m not the same, but... I could try.” 

 

Phil didn’t say anything and Clint started to wish he’d just go, but then he stepped into Clint’s space and rested his hand on his neck, startling him into looking up at those eyes, less soft than they’d been when he thought Clint was ‘his’ version. “Let’s try to get you home first.” 

Clint swallowed and nodded, expecting that was the end of it, but Phil kept standing there, the thumb of his hand softly rubbing along the line of his jaw. But then he seemed to shake himself out of it and stepped away, Clint’s neck cold where Phil’s hand had been. 

 

-

 

Being out of action, with Fury keeping him on-base but off-missions since there were such unaccountable gaps in his knowledge of this world, Clint had nothing much to do beyond hang at the range or go to the labs to see how things were coming along. Tony was the same as he’d ever been in Clint’s world, brash and rude and hilarious, but the theorising and technical jargon was a foreign language to Clint so eventually he felt somewhat surplus to requirements, cluttering up the place so redundantly.

 

If he’d been in his own world, he’d have spent the time annoying Coulson, both versions of whom he missed terribly. The version he’d woken up next to seemed to be avoiding him, and Clint didn’t go out of his way to seek him out either. It was all just awkward and sad, watching his face try to reconcile his feelings for the man that Clint wasn’t, with the man that Clint actually was. 

 

A couple of the members of the team came to visit him, Steve Rogers being brought by Natasha to hear about Bucky and the parts of the story Clint knew of his recovery from Russia, and he never thought he’d see the day when Captain America actually swooned. Bruce asked what the deal was with his doppelganger in Clint’s universe, but it seemed to be much the same, which had Bruce cursing quietly, hoping that at least somewhere his life wasn’t the same. In Clint’s world, Tony’s best friend Rhodey had died in Afghanistan, so when he walked in to speak with Tony and Fury in one of those day-long meetings they had, Clint gaped in surprise and he didn’t know what to say. He thought it best to keep quiet, but told Natasha anyway. He wondered who else was here that wasn’t in the real world, and determined to find out if his own past was different too, which may or may not have been his subconscious pushing him to go talk to Phil.

 

-

 

“I’m sorry, you’re probably busy,” Clint said as soon as he was in Phil’s office, the man blandly looking at him with the expression Clint knew hid a thousand emotions even if they _weren’t_ dating where he came from.

“Not at all,” Phil answered, nodding towards a chair opposite his desk. “Actually,” he said as Clint moved to sit, dropping his pen on the stack of papers infront of him. “Have you had lunch yet?” 

 

They went off base, perhaps in some bid on Phil’s part to find neutral ground, though the world out here was no less different to the world inside HQ. Chang’s Chinese Buffet was Shang’s, the overpass was the other side of the park, the homeless guy who always sat outside the bank wasn’t there, which seemed hopeful, or perhaps terrible.

 

They got sandwiches and sat in the park, and despite the different road situation, it could have been home, Phil and him eating the chicken sandwiches from Betty’s which would be good in any dimension. They were perfect.

 

“Does it taste the same?” Phil asked, and of course he’d know that they were Clint’s favourite. Clint laughed through his nose and chewed before swallowing. “They do actually.” They smiled at each other and then Phil looked away, taking another bite of his own sandwich. “Thanks for taking me off-base, sir.”

“I figured you’d be tired of the cafeteria.”

“Hell yeah.” They both laughed. 

“Are you alright sir?” Clint asked after another small silence. “This has gotta be pretty hard on you, I guess.” 

Phil bit his lips and Clint patiently waited for an answer. “I’m trying to think of it like he’s just on a mission.” He seemed like he wanted to say more but he stopped and then took another bite of his sandwich. 

“Well, if there’s anything I can do, I mean I.. I’m sorry about what I said before, that was just. Well this whole thing is confusing and weird, but um...” Phil looked at him and had the most familiar look of ‘what the hell are you talking about, Barton?’ on his face that Clint just wanted to fall into. He shook his head clear. “Just, tell me if there’s anything I can do to make it suck less for you. I can just stay out of your way if you want me to, if it’s too weird seeing me or whatever.”

 

“It does sort of freak me out,” Phil admitted. “Because you are him. You’re Clint Barton.” He tossed a couple of crumbs at a pigeon on the ground near them. “But you’re not completely the same. I thought it was just, you know, the wind-down after a mission, concussion, the drugs. But there was something weird about you and I couldn’t place it, even before you woke up properly. I was actually sort of relieved when,” he gestured vaguely to Clint.

“Gee, thanks Phil, make a fella feel wanted.”

Phil laughed and ducked his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean it like that, it was just that I could tell something wasn’t right. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t...” He stopped himself again and Clint felt himself blush as they both looked back down at their half-eaten sandwiches. 

 

“You know, everyone’s asked me stuff about my world’s version of them. Even Fury. Don’t you want to know anything?”

Phil took a breath and let it out of his nose. “No. If I’d known what would happen on the Helicarrier during the Chitauri attack? I’d have done things differently. And I’d never have ended up with... the person I ended up with.” Clint didn’t know quite how to respond to that, that someone could want any version of himself enough to be run through with a magical spear, and willingly at that. “You know, I don’t mean to play matchmaker,” Phil continued, “but maybe all this happened for a reason too.”

 

“Gosh, Phil I had no idea you were so spiritual,” Clint smirked, and Phil laughed and rolled his eyes. “You been hanging out with Bruce?” 

 

Clint had forgotten all about what he’d even gone to Phil’s office for in the first place til they were driving back to base. “Oh! I meant to ask you. I wanted to know if it’d be alright if I checked out my file? I’m just curious about, well, everything I guess. I mean it’s cool if there’re security issues or whatever.”

“Sure, I’ll get you whatever you need, Clint,” Phil smiled warmly at him and he envied his other self for getting that for free every day.

 

-

 

True to his word, Phil delivered Clint’s file along with some personal papers of his Clint’s, more well organised than Clint would have had them on his own, he was sure. Nothing was very different, no perfect adoptive family or non-douchebag brother. He’d been in the same circus, still been called Hawkeye, though from the two photos he seemed to prefer deep reds and maroons to purple. Some of it was redacted, though Natasha had told him about him saving her, and that story was much the same too. Everything seemed the same save for tiny details and the occasional huge one like his relationship with Phil and Bucky not being there.

 

Bruce and Tony ran another raft of tests on him, calculating things they didn’t even try to explain. His DNA was the same as the one they had on file, and his fingerprints matched. They called in the professor from New Mexico, Dr Selvig, who was ten kinds of awkward to meet Clint because of what had happened with the whole mind control Loki thing, which Clint obviously had no memory of. But he got over it soon enough and was asking Clint the same questions everyone seemed to ask eventually: ‘Did JFK get shot? Is Marilyn Monroe still alive? What about Elvis?’ Clint had never realised just how fickle fate could be.

 

Once enough tech was salvaged and enough minds smushed together, something was put together that looked like it was from Star Trek: a round frame structure that was empty but for a white-blue glow that softly hummed. It looked impressive but that was all it seemed to do, things passed through it either falling onto the floor on the other side or just disappearing. Run off of an arc reactor prototype, it could run for a month as it was, and they could wait and see if anything came back through. But for now there was nothing to really do but wait. 

 

-

 

“Karaoke,” Nat declared one evening, drumming on the doorframe of Clint’s quarters. He’d been staring at the photo of not-him in his dark red and black - Phil was right, there was something slightly different about him - and started. “Jumpy,” she frowned. “C’mon, get up, it’s Friday night.”

She didn’t seem to expect to wait so he just got up and followed her out to the car lot. “Is Friday night a thing?” 

She stopped and looked at him in shock. “What the hell do you do in your universe?” 

“Well, some Wednesday nights you and me go out to that vodka bar in that old basement place.” That caught her off guard. “Ok well that does sound pretty good so we should do that. But tonight, it’s Friday. On Friday we sing.”

 

They were all there, in a tiny room under a sushi bar that Clint didn’t remember; Fury, Hill, Tony, Steve, Bruce and a couple of other SHIELD-ites Clint didn’t recognise. And when he walked in behind Natasha they cheered, both at him and at her for bringing him. Evidently Clint didn’t come out much since being with Coulson, and apparently he was great at this.

 

They were all well on their way to drunk already, and it was easier than it ought to have been to fall in with them, so familiar and warm and happy that he was there more than anything. And the sushi was great, even with sugary cocktails and Fury singing Islands In The Stream with Tony. 

 

“Does Phil ever come?” Clint asked under his breath to Natasha, and she smiled more than she should have. “Sometimes,” she answered slyly. He wasn’t sure what that implied but didn’t get to ask before a folder full of laminated lists of songs was pushed into his hands, and even if he hadn’t ever been to Karaoke Friday before, Clint Barton never turned down a karaoke microphone.

 

-

 

Clint was on the range fiddling with his bow - no matter what he did it just wasn’t quite right - when Natasha just walked right across the range in front of him. “Something came through the portal.”

“What?!” The bowstring pinged as he let it go. 

Natasha nodded. “Wanna come see?” 

“Hell yes.”

 

Everyone turned to look and grin at them as they walked in, Tony, Bruce, Selvig, Fury and a handful of other people in white coats. Coulson wasn’t there.

“Hey birdie,” Tony smirked, clearly pleased with himself. “Look what the magic hole sent.” 

On a table in the middle of everyone sat a single arrow. Clint looked between the other people in the room before Fury nodded towards it. “Go ahead.”

The arrow was one of Clint’s, no question. It was one he’d made himself, the thread wound round the fletchings in bright turquoise and purple, the feathers cut needlessly elaborately. An old experiment from when he’d first started working on making arrows with Tony. “I made this.”

“We figured. You sure it’s yours?” Bruce asked. Everyone in the room had the rosy glow of excited hope on their faces, and Clint just nodded and grinned. “Definitely. This is amazing. It actually works!” They all grinned at him. “When can _I_ go through?” 

Tony took a deep breath. “First we need to send something back. Something specific to you, or, you know, not-you.” 

“And then something organic,” Bruce chimed in. “Like a plant.” 

“And then,” Tony continued, “assuming they send something back that isn’t just mushed up dead plant juice, we’ll throw in a cat or something.” Tony looked around the room for agreement. “Maybe a mouse,” Bruce suggested instead. He took off his glasses and sat on the edge of one of the tables facing Clint. “Listen. We don’t know yet if this is capable of sending anything that isn’t inert, so try not to get your hopes up too high just yet.”

“No, no of course not,” Clint said hastily, still grinning anyway. “But at least your guy’s safe, right? Even if we can’t switch back. At least he’s ok?” 

“We think so.”

Natasha leaned into him so their arms bumped. “If anyone’s capable of surviving a trip through an interdimensional portal, it’s Clint Barton. You were built for survival in any reality.”

 

Arrangements were made to send a steel box with various documentation through the portal next: a newspaper, some photographs, the list of things etched into the steel itself incase anything somehow disintegrated in-transit. Clint promised he’d find something that appeared unique and unfamiliar to himself to send back, and asked if he could send a note too. Fury nodded once and swept out of the room. He was a more distant man than the one Clint was used to, but he supposed his deep friendship with Phil meant that he was wary of him. 

 

-

 

After the letter and one of the photographs Phil had given him (he chose one of a wedding cake - fairly plain and understated but the other Clint would know what it was) had been sent through along with a small cactus and some scientific equipment, a different cactus and a similar packet of papers were sent back. After some tests and analysis with information sent back, it seemed the cactus was no different to when it had been sent. Clint nodded and smiled and was glad it all seemed to be coming along well. 

 

The packet that had been sent back had contained a sealed envelope addressed to him, and he went back to his quarters to open it. Inside the envelope was a letter, handwriting unmistakably Clint’s, and another letter addressed to Phil. He ignored that for a moment and read the one addressed to him.

 

_Dear Clint,_

 

_This feels like one of those bullshit therapy things they make you do, writing to yourself to say you forgive yourself and love yourself and all that kinda shit. I don’t know if you go to therapy, I guess not. Phil’s the one who makes me go. Don’t tell him this but it’s actually kind of ok. Seriously do NOT tell him that! I will never hear the end of it if I actually make it back._

 

_I’m mostly writing to you cause the science bros aren’t sure if they can get that portal thing to send me through without turning me into dog food, and I guess its the same your end and I wasn’t sure I’d get to talk to you either way. I can’t believe there’s another one of me. I guess that much handsome can’t be contained by one universe huh?_

 

_I’m guessing you’ve figured out by now that I’m married to Phil. I don’t know how different things were for you but I had a crush on him for a long time before anything ever happened. When you come back you should definitely totally date Phil. I may have accidentally made out with him before I realised I was in a different dimension, so I’m sorry if it’s awkward. But hey! It broke the ice!_

 

_I hope Phil is ok. I miss him a lot. The one here is ok but he’s not MY Phil. He’s your Phil! I can tell he misses you too._

 

_I looked through your files to see if we’d had differences to how we grew up and shit, and it seems like it was pretty much the same. That sucks. I kinda hoped things had worked out differently for you. But I guess it worked out the same in the end. You have Tasha and the Avengers, and Phil too, kinda. This whole thing has had me wondering what other versions of us are doing. I bet some are in jail or whatever, but maybe a couple are working 9 to 5s. I still think working for SHIELD and saving the world and shit is pretty much the greatest though._

 

_Dude, what the hell is up with your bow? You string it way too tight! I can’t get it right. The weight’s all wrong and weird. I bet you’ve been dicking around with my one too, so I don’t feel too bad about how much recalibrating you’re gonna have to do when you get back to this janky bow of yours._

 

_Could you give the other letter to Phil? You can read it if you want but that’d be kinda weird maybe. But hell, I’m not there to make you do anything._

 

_Anyway, don’t do anything lame to make me look bad for when I get back!_

 

_Love,_

_Clint_

 

-

 

Phil’s office door was open when Clint came by, holding his bow for a quick escape if things got weird. “Come in. Barton.” 

“Hey, so,” Clint came and stood awkwardly by a chair and tossed the letter on the desk. “You got mail.” 

Phil looked up, startled. He reached out a hand to pick up the letter but then just touched it instead, resting his hand on it and looking back at Clint. 

“I didn’t read it. It’s from the other guy. The other... me.” 

Phil looked a tiny bit lost for a moment but quickly nodded it away. “Thank you. Fury said the tests are coming along nicely?” 

Clint nodded.”Yeah, they’re gonna try a couple of mice next I think. Seems kinda harsh if you ask me.” 

“Well,” Phil said, a wry curve to his lips. “I’d rather some mice than you. To try it out, I mean.”

“Still. What about his mouse friends? Maybe he’s got a little mouse girlfriend. A job, mortgage.” 

Phil laughed. 

“Anyway, I gotta go shoot some arrows. Your boy has the weirdest calibration on this thing. I wanna mess it up some more.” 

Phil nodded and smiled. “Alright,” he picked up the envelope. “Thank you.” 

“No problem boss,” Clint said as he stood. He closed the door as he left.

 

-

 

The mice were sent back and forth a few times to no adverse effects. None of the instruments showed any radiation or chemical breakdown. A few more tests and they’d send Clint through. 

 

A party was held the days before Portal Day, as it had been dubbed. Just a small one in the same bar as before. Phil came this time, and though he refused to sing, he was jovial. It was a sweet send off, everyone giving him advice to tell their other-worldly selves and Tony expounding on the epic adventures he’d have with his own doppelganger and trying to make Pepper agree to a theoretical threesome with two versions of himself. “It’s not incest if it’s yourself! It’s selfcest!”

 

“He does have a point,” Clint chimed in, raising an eyebrow and swigging from his beer when half a dozen heads turned to him. “What?”

Phil returned from the bar and frowned at everyone staring at him. “What?”

“Phil,” started Tony. “Is it incest if-” and was cut off by Pepper clamping a hand over his mouth. Steve’s song started running on the screen and he saved everyone like always, singing ‘Ironic’ by Alanis Morissette, since apparently this version of Steve was going through a 90s alt-rock phase.

 

“Are you excited about tomorrow?” Clint turned to see Phil looking at him with those kind soft eyes of his, the straw of a cocktail in his mouth and his cheeks lightly pink from the ones he’d already drunk.

“Yeah! Nervous mostly. I’m excited to go home though.”

Phil nodded and took a breath. “What about you, Phil? You excited to have the real me back?” 

“Yes, but I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much. If it doesn’t work I-” He frowned and swallowed, and Clint reached out a hand to rest the fingers of it on Phil’s leg. “It’s gonna work.” 

Phil nodded again and gave a weak smile. 

“Anyway,” Clint continued, “they’re sending him first, so if it doesn’t work you can keep me as a consolation prize.” 

The rest of the group sang along with Steve. _It’s like raiiiiin on your wedding daayy!_ No one was paying Clint and Phil any attention. “You could never be a consolation prize, Clint,” Phil answered. 

Clint rolled his eyes and took his hand away. This was all way too heavy for Karaoke Friday. He turned his attention to Steve earnestly singing about things that weren’t actually ironic but then Phil touched his arm and he turned back. “Assuming this all does work, will you -” he paused. “I can’t imagine a universe where you and I know each other and never get to be more than friends.”

“You want me to ask you out?” Clint grinned. Phil ducked his head and nodded. 

“Alright, but you have to do something for me.” 

Phil choked out a little laugh. “Really? And what’s that?” 

Clint looked over pointedly to Steve as he delicately sang the last few notes of his song. Phil laughed and shook his head and then laughed some more. “Are you sure you’re not the real Clint Barton?” 

“Oh, I’m real alright. Now get up there. For the greater good, Phil.”

 

They were all sworn to secrecy, but Phil Coulson had an excellent singing voice.

 

-

 

Portal Day came, and everyone assembled around the room, watching and waiting for something to come through. Phil stood at the back, nervously pacing. They all grew more nervous as the time clicked by and nothing happened. No one said anything either. In reality only ten minutes passed but they felt like decades. Would it work? Would it work and he’d be dead? Would only half of him come through?  

 

“You know, it’s-” began Tony, his face twisted into a wry expression. But he was cut off by the sudden hiss of the portal and then out stepped... Clint.

 

The room erupted in cheers, Other-Clint barely getting a laugh of triumph out before everyone descended on him, crowding around him and clapping him on the back. A pile of people all hugging Clint, hugging each other, high fiving and hollering in excitement. After a minute or so, people stepped back and the noise died down, leaving just Clint and Phil in the middle of it all, his hands fisted tightly in the fabric of Phil’s suit. Tony clapped him on the back and he tore his eyes away. “It worked!” Clint grinned.

“Of course it did!” Tony crowed. “What, do you think we’re amateurs?”

Clint rubbed the back of his neck. “I can’t believe it fucking worked.” 

“Scared?” 

Other-Clint was shaking hands with people and talking to Natasha, and Clint watched them for a moment before answering. “People keep asking me that. I’m kinda scared if it _does_ work.”

Tony laughed. “I know exactly what you mean.” 

 

Clint swallowed as his twin approached him. It was like a dream - a fake mirror. “Hi,” he said. Clint nodded hello. “You know, you’re really attractive.”

They both laughed. “You’re not so bad yourself,” Clint grinned. The other one turned to Phil and the room in general. “Are we supposed to hug it out or what?” 

Clint extended a hand and they shook hands stiffly. “This is so fucking weird,” the man said. 

“I’m glad it worked,” Clint promised, and not because it meant he could go home but because in this universe they were meant to be together, Phil and the other him. He didn’t know what was meant to happen in his world, but at least this was put right. 

“I assume Phil’s told you to ask him on a date when you get back?” 

Clint laughed and nodded. 

“Yeah, you definitely should. I mean, if I were you,” he grinned and Phil rolled his eyes behind him. “I will, alright?” Clint promised with a grin. 

They just looked at each other for a while, til Bruce cleared his throat. “Right, sorry!” Clint said, shaking his head. “You don’t know how long it’ll stay open, sorry.” 

“It’s ok. Trust me, if there was a clone of me I’d be doing more than staring at it,” Tony promised. The rest of the room tutted and Phil laughed quietly. 

Clint squared his shoulders and nodded to himself. “Ok. Let’s do this.” 

The room pulled him into a ridiculous hug before he stood at the portal. He turned to look at Clint, standing with Phil’s arm wrapped around him. “It was nice to meet you,” he said as he stepped forward.

 

-

 

Clint had expected swirling lights or spinning through space or something, but as he stepped through, he stepped right out into the same room, to the whoops and hollers of mostly the same people, bar his extra self. Before he could say anything, he was engulfed in an enthusiastic hug, coming out of it with Natasha clinging to him. She stepped back and slapped him on the cheek, lightly for her. “Never do that again.” 

Clint laughed. “I’ll try not to.” 

 

Phil was in the room, the same place he’d been pacing before, a thousand galaxies away or however these things were measured. He looked nervous and awkward, so Clint strode up and hugged him hard til he hugged back. When he pulled away, Phil was back to the man Clint knew. “Welcome back,” he said with a relieved smile. 

Clint stepped back properly so he could address the room. “Did you miss me?” 

Fury grinned and shrugged. “We had a temp.”

“But he was a terrible shot,” Natasha chimed in.

“The worst,” Tony promised.

 

It was all quiet for a moment, til Phil said softly. “I’m glad you’re back.”

Clint couldn’t stop the goofy smile his face cracked into. “Me too.” 

“Ugh, get a room,” said Natasha.

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is about Clint unknowingly waking up in a different dimension where most things are the same but Phil is his boyfriend (in his own dimension, he's never dated Phil). At first he thinks it's memory loss but then realises that it isn't. Don't worry, he gets home in the end :)
> 
> -
> 
> Thanks for reading!! There are a bunch of (porny) plot bunnies that have sprung out of this for me (Clint and Phil from the universe this story is set in having 'you're alive!' sex, the other Clint and Phil getting it on, Tony rigging up the portal at home so he can orchestrate some insane orgies/fuck himself, 2 Clints with one Phil) but no promises on when/if I'll ever do them.


End file.
